Everybody’s Vaguely Familiar Press Release

Everybody’s Vaguely Familiar
Jack Powers
Golden Antelope Press–an independent press with distribution by Ingram Content Group
(Returns are accepted from bookstores in the US and Canada.)
ISBN 9781936135639; 76 pp; $15.95; release date December 3, 2018
Poetry

Synopsis:

In Everybody’s Vaguely Familiar, Jack Powers finds poetry–aka humor and wisdom–in limitations. The 39 poems in this collection come from a family’s life; they catch the edges of teen rivalries, the fun in songs poorly sung, the bravado of kids with cars, the sense of loss, the sense of time, the twinkle in an alzheimered eye.

“Jack Powers is attuned to twists of life and language—insults refitted as endearments, families defined by their troubles, great care taken with modes of recklessness . . . . –Amy Holman

In Holman’s words we find the essence of Powers’ collection. His “twists of life and language,” like the twists of code in a strand of dna, replicate both what we have in common and what distinguishes us. Why does everybody seem vaguely familiar? How do we relate to one another as children, as adults, as elders? Whose perspectives are most convincing–and why? How reliable are the symbols we use to code “I’m the coolest” or “Neither life nor death can frighten me”?

Powers’ poems, taken together, describe a full arc of living. In “Carry/Miscarry” we grieve the loss of “a not-yet being with thin veiny arms and legs and head,” and in “Do Not Resuscitate,” we’re reminded that, though “the elderly score highest on happiness polls,” it may be “just those who can answer the phone.” “In Praise of Heart Attacks” morphs into “In Fear of Heart Attacks,” yes, but neither is the final word. Life and language twist into a double helix of questions, which Powers’ persona untangles and tangles again. In “Smokin’ A Real Cool Brank,” he traces his history with cigarettes from age 10 to age 29, balancing the pleasures and perils of tobacco; in “The God of Stupidity,” we vicariously experience the crazy freedom of teenaged joyrides–though this poem and others also hint at the destruction potential in that freedom. About a quarter of the poems touch on elderly dementia, though usually with a generous dose of affectionate and respectful whimsy: “He Couldn’t Remember/ why he got up, why he’d come upstairs/ . . . But then it never mattered/ what he’d been looking for anyway,/ it’s what he’d found. Like this paisley-moted/ shaft of afternoon light bending/ through the dusty panes; a yellow spotlight/ like one from that thirties painter famous/ for lonely men in a night-lit diner.” Everybody’s Vaguely Familiar is ultimately a joyous collection.

Biography:

Jack Powers teaches special education, English and math at Joel Barlow High School in Redding, CT. He won the 2015 and 2012 Connecticut River Review Poetry Contests and he was a finalist for the 2013 and 2014 Rattle Poetry Prizes. His poems have appeared in The Southern Review, Poet Lore, Barrow Street, Cortland Review and elsewhere. He lives with his wife, Anne, in Fairfield, CT.

Golden Antelope Press, http://www.goldenantelope.com;
715 E McPherson, Kirksville, MO 63501; Phone 660-665-0273
Neal Delmonico ndelmonico [at] sbcglobal [dot] net Betsy Delmonico bdelmoni [at] truman [dot] edu

Advance Praise for Jack Powers’ Everybody’s Vaguely Familiar

Jack Powers powerful debut collection, Everybody’s Vaguely Familiar, grapples with existential questions of death, illness, and love. Yet it is one of the most life-affirming collections I have read. Powers’ precision of language, his enormous empathy, and his razor-sharp sense of humor allow him to walk the treacherous tightrope of sentiment without ever falling into the abyss of sentimentality. He makes the reader care passionately about the quotidian troubles of his characters. Powers’ command of language and his unique voice offer a profound and affecting glimpse of dashed dreams; boyhood exploits; a miscarriage; dementia; deaths of parents, students, friends; and a unique brush with death at age twenty-nine. The persona is as nuanced as the characters in a novel. This collection lives at the intersection between the dueling world-views of the book— “In Praise of Heart Attacks” and “In Fear of Heart Attacks.” While reading this engaging collection, the reader ultimately understands that despite the arguments Powers posits in favor of a swift and painless death, life with all its disappointments and heartaches is undeniably gratifying. This book reminds me how grateful I am to be alive.

–Jennifer Franklin

The poems in Jack Powers’ debut collection Everybody’s Vaguely Familiar are as human as it gets, maneuvering through the emotional landscape of life with wit, a no-nonsense clarity and a touch of sarcasm. These poems are immediate . . . as if each one is talking specifically to you, the reader, creating a bridge of instant friendship. So when Powers explores fatherhood, the death of a parent, or how we can get the most out of the time we do have, these poems offer a past, present and most importantly a future. So read this collection and celebrate what it really means to be alive.

–Kevin Pilkington

Everybody’s Vaguely Familiar is a funny and poignant ride through the vivid details of our everyday lives. From adolescent smoking to philtrum guards to a miscarriage, Powers captures a male voice in search of what it all adds up to—if anything. In this carefully observant collection, he appears to suggest that even though we fail the ones we love and death claims us all, the struggle is worth it, especially when family shares it with us: “I will…/ remember a beach in Rhodes// where stars littered the sky/ like luminescent river stones/ so close// we could pluck them/from the heavens,/ offer them to each other….” Powers’ book shows us how to “wish for more.”

–Laurel Peterson

Jack Powers is attuned to twists of life and language—insults refitted as endearments, families defined by their troubles, great care taken with modes of recklessness, and in his deftly funny title poem to Everybody’s Strangely Familiar, remembering people while forgetting faces. Near the start of his debut collection, he’s praising the massive coronary, favoring it over the dwindling disease and dementia that took his elders. But as mortality hovers, he teases, testing wits and teasing out the good stories of lucky close calls, game grandmothers, swearing babies, and a wry mother’s sartorial ghosting of her son. Pretty soon, he’s against the quick demise—“and the sky seemed full/ of answers, some hurtling/ like arrows into the future.”

–Amy Holman

I love Jack Powers’ light touch and deep vision. Everyone’s Vaguely Familiar is brilliant, humanistic, quick-witted and fast-paced—but the cameos of family, high school, pop icons and suburbia open seamlessly onto the sacred ground of tragedy: mortality, suffering, how we create ourselves out of nothing and are undone. In “Smokin’ A Real Cool Brand,” Powers’ zinging lines arrive at an epiphany–“an acute awareness of my good fortune”–but that’s not where the poem ends: it ends in the human predicament: illusion, desire, cussedness, our need to flirt with disaster. Everyone’s Vaguely Familiar is a book that will last.

–D. Nurkse